Indigo Red will be moving offices in the next couple of months. My husband, who works for a removal firm, came with me to the office on Saturday to work out how much the move is going to cost us (his labour is free, but I’m not sure I could pay his work mates in kind). In a minor panic that he will realise my work life is not quite as organised as my home one, I had a bit of a tidy up of my desk on Friday. Among the old interview notes and endless business cards I found a copy of The Sunday Times 100 best companies to work for, 2007. It’s been lurking there since March as I had intended to blog about it, and somehow had slipped between an old pile of payslips and some HR trade mags.

So anyway, only a mere 5 months late and here I am ready to write about it.

I thumbed through it once more and scanned the list for PR companies. Only 1 PR agency made the top 100, Hill and Knowlton, who scraped in at number 91. Scanning through the piece on them there are some things which are unsurprising; the male/female ratio is 36:64 – still a considerably better distribution of the sexes than some agencies, and the average age of an H&Ker is 32. There is considerable attention given to the free scoff and booze you can get there – free breakfast and free food after quarterly meetings, plus an onsite bar. However, they score some of the lowest scores in the 100 in terms of work life balance, as nearly half the staff said they felt they spent too much time working.

Still, I wonder what the 88% that said they have fun with their colleagues are up to?

On a slightly different tangent, I also looked for recruitment consultancies. There are a whopping 14 recruitment companies in the top 100, with Hill McGlynn & Associates topping the list at number 12. Impressive numbers from the recruitment industry.

As these Best Company rankings are voted for by the employees, it begs the question are recruitment companies better at their own employment PR than the PR experts?

Did you see yesterday’s supplement in The Guardian about the UK’s Top Family Friendly Employers. Very interesting. Small businesses are in a difficult position as it is financially impossible for most to offer things like extended maternity/paternity leave on full salary. But, I’ve got lots of ideas to make Wolfstar family friendly which won’t cost a fortune and should make us a really good place to work.

No I didn’t, I’ll have to get a hold of a copy! I’d love to hear what you’ve got planned for Wolfstar Stuart. Family friendly environments are certainly a big draw for potential employees, and can help you retain your current staff.
Is extended paternity leave on full pay on the cards? 😉